The Maximizer Paradox
A quick word first
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A double-edge sword
Last week’s article, Good > Better > Best > Blow It?, enabled Jazz readers to test where they stand on Barry Schwartz’s Maximizer-Satisficer scale. It was great to see so many people taking advantage of that opportunity! We’ll analyze the results here. If you missed it, I encourage you to take three minutes to do it now. Here’s the link. It’s okay, of course, if you just plow ahead.
Let me start with the punch line. Then I’ll work my way back. Maximizers are the ones who obsess the most when facing a choice, even a seemingly simple one. When they’re at a restaurant, they go over the menu again and again, testing the server’s patience. Satisficers, by contrast, give the menu only a quick glance, then place their order before even hearing about tonight’s specials.
People who score high on the Maximizer scale are likely to get better deals than those who are mid-range or lower.
That’s the good news for them. The bad news is that they are much less happy with what they get than are the people who did not perform as well.
Schwartz discovered this paradox years ago by tracking students fresh out of college, getting their first full-time jobs. The best-paid people weren’t as happy as those who settled for less. Numerous other studies since then have confirmed this do-better/feel-worse equation. (Perhaps you know this feeling.)
What’s your number?
There were 13 questions about how hard you deliberate before making a choice. For each statement you could respond with any number from 1 (for completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). The higher your total, the more you tend to be a Maximizer. Conceivably your score could be anywhere from 13 to 91, though I’ve never seen either extreme.
The responses here ranged from 33 to 70, with a median of 52. That’s consistent with what I’ve seen in my MBA classes and with results elsewhere Let’s break the numbers down into clusters. Check where you landed.
People have different personalities and priorities, of course. I might weigh certain choices carefully that you decide quickly, but in the aggregate we could end up with similar scores, maximizing sometimes and satisficing in others. That’s what most responders did here.
But then at the end of the scale there are others for whom maximizing is their default. Why is that they perform better yet are less happy?
Negotiation presents lots of choices. Should you make the first offer? What should it be? When should I walk away? Some people dwell on such questions. Others, I suspect, make snap judgments.
One of the most important questions is what you should aim for. Research shows that having high expectations can be self-fulfilling. Adam Galinsky and his colleagues did an experiment in which he gave some subjects five minutes to write a pep talk for themselves before doing a negotiation simulation.1 They listed the outcomes they desired and what they needed to do to achieve them. (This may be an ingrained habit for Maximizers.) Adam called people in this group “promoters.”
A second group was told to list mistakes they might make and what they could do to prevent them. (These were called “preventers.”) No surprise, the promotion group that was primed to be optimistic and proactive made bolder demands, and these, in turn, anchored the bargaining range in their favor and gave them a larger slice of the pie.
And there was a bonus. When two promoters were matched up with each other, they created far more value than did pairs of preventers who were paired up. The promoters were in no hurry to say yes to a proposal that was merely acceptable. Instead, they pushed to find more creative solutions that would expand the pie for both of them.
The right balance
So far, so good. But having high expectations comes with a price. The drive to excel can foster second-guessing (“Could I have done better?”) and regret (“I should have held out for more.” Dwelling on such thoughts can be taxing emotionally. And if those feelings arise during a negotiation, a Maximizer can push too hard and blow up a deal.
My student Chris, whom I wrote about last week, came within a whisker of doing exactly that in her job negotiation. Her score on the Schwartz scale was 87—the highest I’ve ever seen.
Going to the other extreme, becoming a full-fledged Satisficer, isn’t the answer either. You deserve your fair share of the pie. Settling for less doesn’t make much sense.
It would be great if you could just switch these traits on and off, when one or the other is called for. That’s possible, though, only if you have self-awareness, restraint, and perspective.
During the actual negotiation, tap the Maximizer side of your brain, but don’t dial it up all the way to 11. Optimism is fine. So are high expectations, provided they’re not ridiculous. Likewise for being proactive. Be assertive if you need to persuade others of the value you bring to the table. And you must be clear what is negotiable and what is not. But don’t take this so far that you risk impasse or damaging the relationship.
When you’re done, flip off the Maximizer switch. Don’t brood over how well you did. Move on, instead. Look forward to your next deal.
Housekeeping
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See A. Galinsky et al, ”Regulatory Focus at the Bargaining Table,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31, no. 8 (August 2005): pp. 1087-98.